


My thought is not changeable

by lbmisscharlie



Category: The Hour
Genre: Comfort Sex, Drinking to Cope, F/F, Implied Relationships
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-09-14
Updated: 2013-09-14
Packaged: 2017-12-26 12:56:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,550
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/966178
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/lbmisscharlie/pseuds/lbmisscharlie
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Freddie will return – sometime – he must – and Bel is never aimless when Freddie’s around, not like she is now, eyes intent on Lix’s mouth and one stockinged foot rubbing uncertainly against her calf and their smallest fingers just touching where their palms are braced on the floor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	My thought is not changeable

**Author's Note:**

  * For [peninsulam](https://archiveofourown.org/users/peninsulam/gifts).



> Written for a follower prompt fest on tumblr, this fic is for [freegladelancer](http://freegladelancer.tumblr.com)'s [prompt](http://lbmisscharlie.tumblr.com/post/60425424328/the-hour-any-pairing-at-all-d): _The Hour, any pairing at all_ , and for [peninsulamamoenam](http://peninsulamamoenam.tumblr.com)'s request for the porn that followed!
> 
> Title is from Anne Carson's translation of Sappho's fragment 41:  
>  _for you beautiful ones my thought  
>  is not changeable_

Bel’s lipstick is creased and flaking at the corners of her mouth. Lit from behind, by streetlamps filtering through the slated blinds at her window, her hair is softened, darkened, wisps of it escaping around her temples and glinting, catching the light as she shifts. She smiles, wanly, up at Lix and clicks on her lamp – her yellow lamp – Freddie’s damned lamp – her fingertips lingering on the base, for just a moment. 

“Reinforcements?” Lix says, waggling the bottle of whiskey; Bel smiles, though it doesn’t quite reach her eyes. Lix’s pours are generous, and she leaves the bottle, open, on Bel’s desk. 

Bel sips – gulps, really – and doesn’t wince; Lix appreciates that about her. It’s a mediocre blended whiskey, made for desk drawers and the desperate backs of cupboards, and gulping, really, is the best way to handle it. 

Lix pours them another. And perhaps another more, or two.

Bel’s shoes are abandoned under her desk; Lix can just see the toe of one, sideways, under the edge. There are chairs in the office – creaky, with vinyl upholstery that squeaks when you move and sticks to your hands – but they sit – sprawl – on the floor, institutional carpeting stiff and scratchy under their palms. Bel leans her head against the wall; Lix watches the curve of her ear, the swallow of her throat, the flicker of her eyelids, and Bel catches her at it when she glances sideways. 

Lix doesn’t look away. 

The air between them is quite ordinary, smelling of Bel’s perfume, the sharpness of second-rate whiskey on their breath, the ink of the new ribbon in Bel’s typewriter, and the wafting ammonia stench from the cleaners working down the corridor. The door is still open; Lix can just hear the _swish swish_ of the mop.

Bel exhales; Lix feels the breath brush over her lips and doesn’t move but to dip her chin, just so, until their foreheads knock together. 

“I don’t – I’m not –” Bel says, or breaths, the words falling into the minute space between them. 

“I know, my dear,” Lix murmurs back; for Freddie will return – sometime – he must – and Bel is never aimless when Freddie’s around, not like she is now, eyes intent on Lix’s mouth and one stockinged foot rubbing uncertainly against her calf and their smallest fingers just touching where their palms are braced on the floor.

Aimless, she is, so Lix centers her. 

Bel exhales, just as their lips touch, so that the warm rush of air flutters over Lix’s mouth to be replaced by the damper – softer – press of Bel’s lips. 

Bel’s dress is emerald and snug, creased across the tops of her thighs. The buttons at the front are false, stitched on, and the narrow shawl collar opens around the sturdy rise of her neck, the vee narrowing into the soft curve of her breasts. The fabric, under Lix’s hand, is sturdy wool, smooth and heavy, and fits too closely to her hip for Lix to work it up, reveal her thighs. She pets at Bel’s hip even so, needful, and Bel shifts to her, body canting like a curved, hungry bracket, consuming all the unsaid pleads that fall silent in Lix’s mouth. 

The movement is enough to release the trapped material, and Lix shifts her hand, slides it up from the rounded curve of Bel’s knee – soft at the back, fleshy – and under the hem, until her hand finds the top of Bel’s stocking and she is stymied, for a moment, by the wondrous edge of nylon on skin. 

She hasn’t done this in – since the war; been with another woman like this, hungry and aching, and Bel hasn’t ever. Bel breaths against her, chest rising and falling momentously, and when she looks up at Lix the small lines around her eyes furrow. 

“Are – are you –” she says, haltingly, and Lix shakes her head and kisses her quick. 

“Just – savouring,” she says. Bel laughs against her. 

Lix’s other hand is pinned between them, and she very much wishes that were not the case, not with the other slipping up under Bel’s skirt and Bel’s neck and shoulder and the swell of her breast so temptingly close, just under green wool. She frees both and reaches around Bel, to the zip at her side, and draws it down, letting her hands trail after, fingertips skimming over the silk of her slip. Obliging, Bel lifts herself enough to shift the skirt up over her hips, their hands working together; it catches, just snug, at the crease of her hips, and Lix works her hands up under the fabric, fingers soft on the bare skin of Bel’s arse under her knickers. Bel’s eyes go wide; it’s all Lix can do to keep from laughing. 

She tickles her fingers along the sweat-slick joining between Bel’s arse and thigh, and Bel’s breath hitches, a laugh and a sigh. Lix does grin, now, and shifts so she’s straddling Bel’s outstretched legs, and works the dress up her torso and over her head.

“And now you’ve mussed my hair,” Bel says, teasingly, patting ineffectually at the wisps that frame her face. 

“Don’t be wet,” Lix says, and captures Bel’s surprised laugh with a kiss. Bel’s hands grip at Lix’s shoulders, quite tight; holding on. Lix lets her, saying nothing, and kisses down the taut curve of her neck, nipping at the joining of her shoulder, pushing aside the straps to her slip, to her brassiere, and cupping the palm of her hand under the generous fullness of Bel’s breast. 

“Oh –” Lix’s mouth finds her nipple; it puckers against her lips, tight and swollen, and she suckles at it. Bel’s hands move – finally – from Lix’s shoulders, to grip at her neck, in her hair, holding her tight, mouth pressed to her breast. Lix’s other hand cups Bel’s ribcage, which swells and falls with each deep, desperate breath. 

She’d like to go slow, to unhook Bel’s suspenders and kiss down her legs as she unrolls her stockings; to marvel at her fair, freckled skin and trace the lines of her day, finding each indent in her flesh left from layers of nylon and silk and wool; to spread her open, delve her fingers through her pink, swollen folds. But she’s conscious of the cleaners in the hallway, the quiet whispers of other bodies still at work – news never sleeps – and she’s never been one to go slow, anyway.

So she pulls back and helps Bel shift until she’s spread on the carpet, forearms tucked under her head so she can see Lix, knees held together awkwardly still. Lix leans down, kisses her mouth, her jaw, her collarbone, the sweat-damp hair under her arm, until Bel relaxes, thighs falling open so Lix can move between them, one hand firm at Bel’s hip. 

Bel’s lip quivers, but she nods, sharply, when Lix slips her fingertips under the edge of her knickers, at her thigh. Lix lifts the gusset, moves it to the side; Bel’s _oh_ is less a word than an exaltation. 

Lix pets her thumbs up the valleys on the outside of Bel’s lips, fine blond curls pale against the red creases left by her knickers, against the pink of her cunt. Bel opens to her, shifts her hips just so they cant up, in Lix’s hands, and Lix spreads her open, thumbs pressing, and leans down to cover her – to take her – with her mouth, tongue sweeping, hungry, up through her wet-slick folds. 

Gasping, Bel drops one hand to Lix’s head, just threading fingers through her hair distractedly. Leaning in on her elbows, Lix sucks at her: her wet hole, her swollen flesh, her hardened clit. She’s sour-sharp in Lix’s mouth, familiar and not. 

“Oh – oh –” Bel’s exhales are aimless sounds; Lix finds herself wondering if Bel is like this, always, obliging and gentle, or if it’s the whiskey – or the sorrow – or her. Lix feels tender; shockingly so; nearly maternal but for the heavy, sparking want in her own cunt, the thrum that brings her to press the flat of her tongue, firmly, against Bel’s clit, drawing it up and back as Bel’s hips move in short, rocking bursts. 

She can hear Bel’s sighs, louder now, but feels it build more: the way her wetness grows heavier, coats her mouth; the swelling of her clit; the fevered rocking of her hips before she arches – and gasps – and falls back, panting. 

“That was –” Bel says, hands clutching and releasing at her sides – “that was marvellous. That was – you are –”

“Yes, my dear,” Lix says, laconically, as she presses back to her heels and wipes her hand across her mouth. Bel grins up at her, giddy, and Lix feels her own smile spread; for how can she not, with such a sight as Bel, happy, so rare of late?

“You’re stupendous,” Bel says, laughing at herself through the word.

Lix pats at her still-stockinged calf. “Yes, dear, don’t over-do it.”

Bel laughs, a sharpish burst that echoes down the corridor, then claps her hand over her mouth. “What now, then?” she says, quieter.

Lix pretends to consider. Her thumb traces circles on Bel’s ankle. “Well, this bottle’s empty, but I know where there’s another. And my office does have a sofa.” She grins at Bel, sharkish, and Bel’s eyes spark.


End file.
